Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Classroom Pictures - Camping Theme

I have been hard at work this week getting my room ready for meet the teacher night.Thanks to so many great blogs, websites, and friends who shared all their ideas with me.This really made the process go by quickly.I just got on to blog and saw that I reached my 100 FOLLOWERS mark.I'm so happy.I guess this means I need to do a giveaway soon.Any ideas?I was thinking a Scholastic gift certificate.Well here is a sneak peek at my room.I only have a few odds and ends to finish up, but it's getting really close!

The Writing Trail - This is a snapshot of my writing center, hooked on homework chart, and my behavior pond to the right. I will be picking up my kids wooden picnic table this weekend and that will go where the table is now.

Campfire stories to display student work. The little wildlife animals have their names.

My Caring Campers. This is my spin on bucket filling with a camping theme. Instead of actually filling the buckets with pom-pom balls we are going to do camper compliments.

We are the Blue Jays, so their names are on little Blue Jay campers. My teacher friend Deb made these with her Cricut.

My parent packet

The Word Forest (Word Wall & Pathways/CAFE board)

I got most of these ideas from the Clutter Free Classroom blog. Stop by and check out her stuff!

I have been using the camping theme for a few years now and I love it. I don't have my blog created yet but I am looking forward to posting pics.

So excitingly weird to see that we have many of the same things...the camper fire for publishing, tent, etc. I have "Caring Campers" as well. (love the book).

I teach at at PYP school so in our classroom C.A.M.P.E.R.S. stands for: Curious Active Motivated Positive Energetic Respectful Students

Their first "Homefun" activity is creating an effective workstation at home.

Here is the assignment (sorry the graph wouldn't copy)

Your homefun assignment this week is to go exploring….You are to complete 2 explorations. Picking your site and “Me Bags”Exploration 1: Picking Your Site (due on Friday)Your first adventure is to create the best site (place) in your home where you will do you homefun tasks. The most successful campers are the ones that are prepared. Before you can do this you will need to do a brainstorm with your parents. Step 1 Brainstorm: Talk with your parents and write down your ideas. (this is in chart form)Planning Your Site Record Your ThinkingSchedule/Routine:Every camper needs to know the rules of the park. What routine will you follow to make sure you know when you will do your homefun tasks, where your homefun bag goes, how to make sure your agenda will be checked, etc.?

Location: Where can you concentrate best?What helps you to concentrate?

Equipment: What equipment will you need to be successful?

Any other details you wish to add?

Step 2: Set up your site.Step 3: Have your mom or dad take a picture of you at your work site. You will then glue it into your reflection journal in class.

Oh, I also wanted share that I bought a bunch of smaller coolers. The students sit on them, the mini lawn chairs, or the tree stumps..but the best part is that I use them to story mentor texts as the ones I purchased are long and narrow. I was very thankful to the store for making them in my classroom colours ;)

The area in front of the smart board we call the smart board swamp and I found round, rubber mats (Ikea) that my students refer to as lily pads that they sit on for our meeting time.

Lastly, sticking with the animal theme... The Beanie Baby Reading strategies tie in nicely and the campers love it. I organized a chart that corresponds to the DRA and it is keeping in their home reading folder.

Thanks for sharing so many great ideas! Bloggers like you inspire around the world. (I am writing to you from Amsterdam ;)

I was wondering what all you put in your "survival guide"? I am trying to do a camping theme classroom and have just about everything but looking for a survival guide to know what to put in mine! LOVE the idea! Thanks, Daisy Blakeblakemomma@gmail.com